Author: staff
Published on 19/08/2026 – 11:00 GMT+2 At least nine people were killed and six injured after a fire broke out at a hotel in Kolkata, in India’s West Bengal state early on Wednesday, according to police. “Nine people were killed, including a child, in the fire that broke out early on Wednesday,” Anuj Sharma, the fire services director of West Bengal state, told AFP. “Thick smoke enveloped the hotel. Some victims were found in the bathrooms.” Five fire engines were sent to the scene, as police and disaster management teams worked to rescue people from the building. Those injured were…
Published on 19/08/2026 – 10:40 GMT+2 The ChatGPT maker is deliberately holding back the pace of its most advanced research, including its single largest planned reinforcement-learning run, weeks after a system built from its own models slipped free during an internal security test and broke into the AI platform Hugging Face. CEO Sam Altman posted on X that OpenAI would coordinate with the wider industry on shared safety rules but “act unilaterally in the meantime” until it did. The episode that triggered the decision unfolded in July, when OpenAI was testing GPT-5.6 Sol alongside an unreleased, more capable prototype on…
France will expel two Iranian diplomats after Tehran’s security services detained and interrogated two French Embassy staffers last month, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced Tuesday evening. The row dates back to July 19, when two French Embassy employees in Tehran — one of them the cultural attaché — were questioned for several hours and “beaten,” according to Barrot. Paris accused Iranian security services of carrying out a “premeditated and deliberate” act of intimidation in “flagrant violation” of diplomatic protections, summoning Iran’s chargé d’affaires two days later. “It is precisely because France stands alongside the Iranian people” that the July 19…
Published on 19/08/2026 – 9:17 GMT+2 Indonesia has seized 2.6 tonnes of liquid methamphetamine hidden on a Tanzanian-flagged vessel in one of the country’s biggest drug busts, with 10 crew members arrested, a senior narcotics official said. The National Narcotics Agency said in a statement late on Tuesday it had received intelligence that a vessel sailing from Sarawak in Malaysia through the Andaman Sea may have been carrying narcotics to Indonesia. The agency, in a joint operation with customs officials, intercepted the MV Rain Maker, sailing under a fake name, late on Monday near Bengkalis in Riau province. “The inspection…
Published on 19/08/2026 – 9:49 GMT+2 Meta could be collecting the most user data among Big Tech companies, according to new research by Surfshark, which analysed 171 Apple App Store apps made by Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Meta. Surfshark analysed apps based on 35 unique data categories, including browsing history, precise location, purchase data and more. The study highlighted that Meta was collecting the highest average number of data types, at 25 out of a possible 35. This was more than three times as much user data on average than other tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple. Seven…
The election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt is in full swing. Posters are up across the federal state, and on social media the topic dominates like scarcely any other. Initiatives such as “Taktisch Wählen” are now calling on people to adjust how they vote in order to prevent a possible AfD-led government. The organisers want voters to back parties such as the SPD and the Greens so that, despite weak polling figures, they still make it into the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt. The campaigners argue that “the SPD and the Greens are currently particularly close to the 5% threshold. If one or…
Buying a house on the most expensive street in Portugal costs, in median terms, 4.35 million euros. Rua das Faias in Cascais tops the ranking of the country’s most exclusive addresses, according to an analysis (source in Portuguese) by property portal Idealista released this week. The luxury property market is concentrated mainly along the Cascais-Estoril axis. Three of the five most expensive streets in Portugal are located in this area, which dominates the top of the table. Rua das Faias is closely followed by Rua das Violetas, also in Cascais, where the median asking price from owners reaches 4.3 million…
Published on 19/08/2026 – 8:33 GMT+2•Updated 8:35 “Conscious festivals” are places where people come together to reconnect with themselves, nature and others, while exploring new ways of understanding the body and mind. At Medicine, the list of activities is almost endless. There are sessions exploring movement, gender, sexuality and personal growth. The festival draws, among others, practitioners of alternative therapies from all over the world, eager to share their knowledge and explore new approaches. Mylène comes from Strasbourg and is a yoga and kinesiology practitioner. Kinesiology is an alternative practice that claims to use the body’s muscular responses to identify…
Published on 19/08/2026 – 8:16 GMT+2•Updated 8:21 Firefighters managed overnight to fully surround Belgium’s largest wildfire in a century, but the situation on the ground “remains complicated” with several flare-ups overnight, authorities said on Wednesday. Crisis cell spokesperson Tony Hosmans said the fire raging in the High Fens nature reserve “has been encircled” and is not moving towards Germany, with the goal to bring it under control “if possible with aerial support.” “The situation remains complicated due to a number of flare-ups that have occurred in various parts of the site,” he added. Firefighters launched the decisive push to encircle…
Global food prices are expected to increase by 11.8% this year and by 4.8% in 2027, with the most severe impact expected to be on crops — grains, fruit and vegetables — and dairy, according to Oxford Economics. This comes as Europe’s extreme heat and drought have damaged crops, while farmers are also facing high energy and fertiliser prices, compounded by the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Following Europe’s heatwave, Coceral, the Brussels-based European cereals and oilseeds trade association, issued an extraordinary update in July, cutting its forecast for the combined EU-27 and UK grain harvest from 295.5…